Fights Among Capitalists Sharpen Class Struggle, Create Potential for Real Communism
“I always like your paper,” said a bus operator in Los Angeles. “Can you write something about North Korea? Everyone here is talking about it.”
Western mass media often hold up North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) to show how terrible communism is supposed to be. But North Korea is not communist.
If it were communist, it wouldn’t have a money-based economy. The masses would not work for wages (currently about $5-11 per day) in Korea, nor in China (where 94,000 North Koreans work now). If North Korea were communist, the masses would be organized to exercise power directly. There would be no hereditary “Supreme Leader” (Kim Jong-un).
The capitalist website Investopedia (2015) calls North Korea an “unreformed, isolated, tightly controlled, dictatorial command economy.” Capitalists condemn the lack of freedom for the individual in a controlled economy. However, they never speak about the advantages of the state’s ability to direct resources to identified needs.
Individual capitalists and corporations control most of the resources in what they describe as “free societies.” Also, through strategic use of their wealth, they control government at all levels. In these societies, there is no responsibility for the controllers of the wealth to consider the masses in their decisions. Thus, they allow hunger and homelessness to exist in the midst of great wealth.
During the Korean War (1950-53) North Korea was reduced to rubble by the incessant bombing of the US and its allies. Since then there has been amazing progress in construction of housing and the development of industry- but in a capitalist direction.
The government provides free homes, mostly in modern high-rises. But top officials get the desirable lower units. Most workers end up on upper floors with unreliable electricity and therefore unreliable elevators.
In a real communist society, nobody will get special privileges. Each will receive according to need. And we wouldn’t build high-rises without functioning elevators!
Private home ownership is technically illegal in North Korea. But the money economy fosters bribery. Informal “real estate agents” with government ties get huge commissions for securing prime units for wealthy customers. Amidst a housing construction boom, capitalists are speculating in this quasi-private property.
From the mid-1950s through the 1970s, North Korea rapidly rebuilt and expanded its industrial base. This was state capitalism on the Soviet Russian model, not communism. As elsewhere, it continues to sharpen class contradictions.
The working class is increasingly desperate and hungry. But wealthy people in the capital, Pyongyang, wear western business attire while shopping in well-stocked stores. Government officials (party cadres) form a tightly interconnected hereditary ruling class. Their children become the new cadres. They marry only within their class. Non-party workers are expected to bow to party cadres.
How could this be in a communist country? It couldn’t! So the North Korean rulers invented a new nationalist, authoritarian ideology (Juche) to replace Marxism-Leninism. Like Khrushchev’s revisionism, it rejected class struggle and promoted “defending the fatherland.” By 2009 Korean rulers weren’t talking about communism at all.
North Korea Missile Test Exposes Isolation of US Imperialism in Asia
Meanwhile, North Korea has escaped the fate of countries like Libya and Iraq that tried unsuccessfully to appease the US. Its strategy was the development of nuclear weapons and missiles as a deterrent to US aggression.
The North Korean rulers chose July 4th to launch a long-range missile capable of reaching Alaska. What’s their goal? How will US rulers respond? Are they ready to risk war with North Korea — and China too? (See below)
North Korean rulers know that if they launched a weaponized missile against the US, US bombs could reduce the country to radioactive rubble. Their latest test was probably meant to further isolate the US in East Asia. They may hope to negotiate for US forces to stand down in the region. All US imperialist analysts admit that the US has no good response.
The North Korean weapons program also attempts to build national pride so as to deflect the growing anger of the masses. One Korean expert, Jae-Jean Suh, wrote that “in the event of a major catastrophe in North Korea, the families of the party cadres and security authorities, as well as the elite of the core class, would likely be the first to flee the country.
“If North Korea were to wage war, the barrels of North Korean guns might just as likely turn around, that is, the people might very well take aim at the cadres themselves.”
Capitalists everywhere, whether national or imperialist, face the same dilemma. As they compete with each other, and especially when their rivalry bursts into open warfare, their mortal enemy is the working class.
Capitalism’s ruthless exploitation and brutal repression are reason enough to mobilize for communism. The mass murder and destruction of their wars make communist revolution more necessary and more urgent.
When you talk about North Korea, think about this. And talk to your co-workers, fellow soldiers, classmates, family and friends about joining and building the International Communist Workers’ Party.
CAPITALISM-IMPERIALISM MEANS WAR…READY OR NOT
“Trump could literally tweet us into a nuclear war” over North Korea, warned Korea expert Laura Rosenberger in the Washington Post.
But it’s a mistake to blame the danger on Trump – or on his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Un. The true cause is the sharpening and unavoidable conflict between two imperialist powers: a declining US and a rising China.
Former President Obama and his Secretary of State Clinton had a “Pivot to Asia-Pacific” policy. It included the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, now dead in the water. Meanwhile Chinese economic influence in the region grows. In 2015, for example, China and North Korea expanded shipping routes and high-speed rail lines between the two countries, and created a border trade zone.
Obama also increased troop deployments and other military activities in Asia-Pacific. These included naval patrols, joint military exercises and close surveillance of China. He strengthened military cooperation with allies such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore.
China continues to expand and modernize its military, especially its naval and air forces. These forces are nearly all concentrated in Asia-Pacific, unlike US forces which are spread worldwide. China’s huge population enables it to field a massive army.
The strategic and resource-rich Korean peninsula has long been a focus of great-power conflicts. Japan occupied Korea after the 1905 Russo-Japanese war. It invested heavily in building Korea’s industrial base, but Korean masses are still angry at the brutality of the occupation.
With Japan’s defeat in 1945, the Soviet and US rulers divided “North” from “South” Korea. The start of the Cold War made peaceful reunification impossible. Separate governments were organized in 1948.
Two years later, Russian-backed North Korean troops crossed the border, trying to reunify Korea. The Korean war (1950-53) drew in Chinese troops. But US and South Korean troops flattened North Korea and re-established the border, which remains highly militarized.
The Soviet Union (SU) became North Korea’s main ally and trading partner. It was key to rebuilding North Korea’s heavy-industrial economic base. In 1988, about 60% of North Korea’s trade was with the SU. After the collapse of the SU, China stepped in. Today China provides North Korea with most of its food and energy. Over 90% of North Korea’s trade is now with China.
The Chinese rulers don’t want war in North Korea. They don’t want North Korean nuclear weapons to become an excuse for a US military attack. They want stability and a buffer-zone between China and South-Korean-based US forces. They fear that instability (refugees or class struggle) could spread to China itself.
Obama’s policy regarding North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program was “strategic patience.” That is, he didn’t want to go to war over it – nor does Japan or South Korea.
There are many possible flash-points for a US-China conflict that could explode into a nuclear World War III. North Korea is not the likeliest. However, few would have predicted that the assassination of an Austrian arch-duke would trigger World War I – even the communists who saw imperialist war on the horizon.
Capitalists and imperialists worldwide rightly fear that “instability” and war create opportunities for workers’ revolution. Those opportunities already exist. Let’s take advantage of them to mobilize the masses for communism.
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